The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-11-04
WHERE THE CLASSICS JosTLE.

Monastic Apartments of . Modern Col
lege Student-Apparel OF q DevOtee.
Education is not at all the bare scholas-
tic struggle that it formerly was. The
early graduate who remembers the Spar
tan experiences of his college life, the I'M
timely morning bell that called him from
his hard couch to the barn like chapel, the
bare walls of his cell like study, the I'M
comfortable chairs and the rude table
everything, indeed, subordinated to the
one idea of discipline-must have bitter
thoughts of what he might have become
If he had enjoyed all the aids to develop
ment which the modern student has. And
the bevy of girls who are permitted on
rare holidays to inspect the monastic
apartments where the young gentlemen
study modern life must feel sinking of
the heart when they realize how impossi-
BILE it will be for them to make home at
all worthy Of the modern highly educated
young man.
What place it is, this Sybaritic bower,
for the cultivation of the intellect! Neither
Webster nor Calhoun had any such influ-
ences about him. What q stimulus to the
mind it is, the rug covered and curtained
chamber! its tinted walls hung with ex-
quisite etchings and bits of color in oil,
and the winning pictures of the most beau
tiful actresses and singers of our time;
silken portieres; deep chairs that invite to
the profoundest reflection upon the great
problems of existence; carved tables
strewn with all the literature of the bou-
doir; rows of book shelves where the
grand classics jostle the latest dialect and
realistic outcome of our civilization; an
elegant chandelier on whose branching
arms hang a hundred souvenirs of the
german; bats, balls, rackets-an the tools
Of the higher education; deep window
seat Of blue plush, where the young an
chorite lies and ponders perhaps an epic,
perhaps an Grafton in the senate, perhaps
great argument at the bar, more proba-
bly, the solution of the chronic struggle
between capital and labor. Do we forget
the piano, the rack of carved pipes2 These
are for relaxation, for relief in the hard
ships Of the stern collegiate life, for the
hours of sentiment that come alike to
pitcher and stroke oar, when he sings,
Such an education has my Mary Ann.
Naturally this ascetic life manifests it
self more or less in the undress apparel of
the devotees Of learning. But the striped
caps and striped jackets that mark the
oGuuenC dre uOG lLnpOSeu Dy Lne SCaUe anu
not adopted in the humility of penance
for sins, but are noble signs of the fra
ternity of learning, taken from the tennis
court and the boat house and the race
course, and show that all education is
one, an aesthetic democracy, a fellowship
between the construer of Greek and the
flying rider of the thoroughbred. It is q
note of the higher education of the period.
There was good deal said some time ago
about what was called the luxurious life
Of some of the students at one of our uni
versities. And an impression was spread
abroad that this must necessarily inter
fere with the pursuit Of learning, and con-
sequently with success in life.
81 don't see how you can study in such
bower" said an old fashioned person
who saw for the first time one of these
silken scholastic dens. The reply was
only plying smile. STUDY Why, did
this ignorant questioner know that in this
very university an undergraduate received
the offer of higher salary as pitcher in a
baseball nine than was ever made to any
Of its graduates for filing any professors
kchair in this country?-Charles Dudley
Warner in Harper's Magazine.